


the internet was a mistake

by kageygirl



Category: Kingsman (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Based on a Tumblr Post, First Meetings, Fluff and Humor, Lepidopterist Harry Hart, M/M, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-11
Updated: 2018-01-11
Packaged: 2019-03-03 14:51:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13343520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kageygirl/pseuds/kageygirl
Summary: Unsaid, but fairly fucking obvious in hindsight, was that Harry Hart did not have a lot to do in his free time to have delved that deeply into Eggsy's timeline, and that Eggsy might have wanted to consider that a lepidoperist with 53 Twitter followers might well notice picking up a new one with whom he was not personally acquainted and thus do some digging, and also that Eggsy was an idiot and the entire internet was a mistake.





	the internet was a mistake

**Author's Note:**

> Based on [this Tumblr post](http://kageygirl.tumblr.com/post/169586614710/sassafrasx-menderash-i-saw-a-really-cool). A thousand thanks to [shetiger](http://archiveofourown.org/users/shetiger/pseuds/tigerlady) for betaing and [LelithSugar](http://archiveofourown.org/users/LelithSugar/pseuds/LelithSugar) for Brit-picking and only laughing at me a moderate amount -- very restrained. Any mistakes are mine, all mine.

This ain't actually the daftest thing Eggsy's ever done, but that's only by virtue of the fact that he's done a _lot_ of daft things. Which is, like pretty much all of his virtues, a dubious one.

He's got a lot of time to reflect on this, since like a twat, he managed to show up 20 minutes early, and is now stood outside the lecture theatre, pretending to read the posters on the bulletin board, his cap pulled low. It's blindingly obvious he doesn't belong here, so he tries to fade into the background, pulling out his phone like he's making note of one of the house shares or seminar announcements.

The cheerful little Twitter icon mocks him from his notifications bar, and he scowls down at it. This whole business is the fault of that fucking bluebird.

* * *

"Oi, change it, cuz, this is dead boring."

Eggsy vaguely registered the words, but ignored them. They didn't really seem relevant to the show he had on, anyway, because _that_ had a bloke who not only knew a fuckton about butterflies, but seemed to be delighted to talk about butterflies, with a pure and simple joy that Eggsy had rarely known. Eggsy was just drunk enough that it was all incredibly charming, like being in a warm happy cocoon. Or -- chrysalis, as the butterfly bloke put it.

It didn't hurt that butterfly bloke was softly gorgeous, curly brown hair just starting to hint at grey, with a posh accent but a gentle tone of voice that Eggsy could listen to all night.

"Eggsy!" 

A wadded-up chips wrapper bounced off the side of his head, and he turned to look at Jamal. "What're you on about, bruv?"

"You picking shows like an old woman." Jamal waved his hand at the telly. "C'mon, you could put literally anything else on."

"I like this," Eggsy said, sprawling deeper into the sofa to demonstrate his resolve. "'Sides, it's my flat, innit? So fuck off."

"Whatever," Jamal mumbled, hauling himself out of the armchair. "I'm off to Brandon's, then."

"Later," Eggsy said, getting a vague two-fingered wave in return.

His phone buzzed less than ten minutes later.

_@overunwin is a twat who watches butterfly porn_

_fuck off this shit is great_ , he typed back.

That was apparently the Twitter equivalent of breaking the seal and taking the first piss during a night at the pub, his thumbs now taking the wheel without much input from his brain.

_i think i'm in love_ , they tweeted, when the butterfly bloke grinned at his own joke, wide and open and inviting. 

_stop drinking before you die bruv_ , was the response to that.

The butterfly bloke was gesturing around a garden sort of place, smiling as he pointed in gentle little flicks with long, graceful fingers, and so Eggsy couldn't really be held responsible for, _not drunk just wanna marry the butterfly bloke_.

_fucking freak_ , Jamal tweeted back, and Eggsy tipped his head back and laughed.

* * *

It was the next week or so when he'd taken Daisy to the park, finding her staring into a bush at one point, the ball she'd run to retrieve all but forgotten. "What've you got there, lil flower?" he asked. 

"Worm!" she stated, pointing at the tenant of a partly chewed and quickly vanishing leaf.

"No, that's a caterpillar," he said, and her tiny forehead furrowed.

"Cat pillar," she repeated dubiously, and he nodded, giving her a big grin.

"That's right," he said brightly. "They eat a lot of food, and then they have a little sleep, and when they wake up, they've turned into a beautiful butterfly. Like the ones on your hair clips," he said, tapping one of the little plastic things, and she shrieked and ducked away from him, giggling.

On the walk home, her head nestled into the crook of his neck, she asked him question after question about butterflies, and he struggled to remember as much as he could. Later, after he put her down for the night, he hunted up the episode on the BBC site in order to watch it again.

Even sober, it was a pretty good watch. He liked it that the caterpillars looked weird and squashable, only to grow themselves wings and fly away from it all. Kind of poetic, that. And the way that some butterflies looked like moths, or tree bark, or had fuck-off huge fake eyes on their wings. That takes some bollocks, to be a tiny insect using bluffs and camouflage to scare off predators. 

And then there was the butterfly bloke himself. 

Dr. Harry Hart, said the bar along the bottom of the screen, and he tapped it into his phone to look up later. _Harry_ , Eggsy decided to think of him as, because Dr. Hart seemed weirdly formal for that sweetly excitable man who just really fucking loved butterflies and who was, Eggsy was oddly relieved to realize, just as adorable as Eggsy's first impression, even without beer goggles stapled to his face.

As the credits rolled, he did some Googling, finding Harry's university bio page and publications list -- apparently there was a _lot_ to write about butterflies -- a couple of other video segments, and then eventually his Twitter page. Pinned to the top was an announcement of an upcoming free lecture Harry was giving, more details to come later, and Eggsy followed him without thinking too much about it.

* * *

On reflection, "without thinking too much about it" was the punchline to the joke that was Eggsy's life.

When he checked his phone the next morning, he had a DM from @harryhartphd.

Harry Hart was glad that he had enjoyed the BBC programme the week before.

Harry Hart wished that he had thought to make "@butterflybloke" his Twitter handle, he quite liked it.

Harry Hart was flattered by Eggsy's matrimonial interest in him.

Unsaid, but fairly fucking obvious in hindsight, was that Harry Hart did not have a lot to do in his free time to have delved that deeply into Eggsy's timeline, and that Eggsy might have wanted to consider that a man with 53 Twitter followers might well notice picking up a new one with whom he was not personally acquainted and thus do some digging, and also that Eggsy was an idiot and the entire internet was a mistake.

He was fairly certain that his blush could be detected by those heat sensors, the ones they based on the design of butterfly wings, from quite a ways away. Like outer space.

(Yeah, maybe he'd done some extra Googling about butterflies and shit. Not a crime, was it?)

After a few hours of hating every decision he'd made in the past two weeks, he spent another hour agonizing over what to say, and eventually wrote back with, _Thanks for giving me so much stuff to tell my baby sister about butterflies. Think she's changed her mind, now wants to be a princess astronaut lepidopterist when she grows up_ (after having triple-checked how to spell _lepidopterist_ ).

He spent the rest of the day trying not to think about it at all, because blushing too hard for too long had to be bad for the blood pressure or something. By the time he crashed into bed, he was almost succeeding more often than failing.

But the next morning, there was another DM, this one letting him know the details of Harry's upcoming evening lecture, if he wanted more ammunition with which to impress his sister?

It was at that point that Eggsy's nerve failed him, and he never wrote back again. He even strongly considered unfollowing Harry on Twitter.

* * *

He did not unfollow Harry on Twitter.

But he remembered the bit about the lecture.

* * *

At five to, he slinks into the lecture theatre and takes a seat in the back row, slouching as low as he can and still maintain an eyeline with the projection screen and lectern at the front of the room.

The rest of the audience looks to fall into one of two categories: older academic types, a lot of glasses and ties and hair done up in silvering buns; or, students around Eggsy's age, blazers and notepads and faces just a bit too studiously serious to be anything but the toff version of kissing arse.

All told, though, there aren't really that many people here, and Eggsy's a little offended on Harry's behalf. Like, who wouldn't want to watch him talk, all animated and enthusiastic and shit? Apparently university degrees don't stop people from being idiots, but then again, Eggsy had always suspected that kind of thing to be true.

On the hour, an older bird takes the lectern and thanks them all for attending the lecture series on who the fuck knows what, because Eggsy gets distracted by seeing Harry off to the side, hands folded in front of him, waiting for his introduction to finish. Eggsy's seized by the simultaneous urges to both sit up straight and slump down further, and ends up basically twitching in his seat like the freak he might actually be after all.

Harry -- or maybe it's safer if Eggsy goes back to thinking of him as Dr. Hart, yeah? -- is wearing a nice professorly jacket over a waistcoat and button-down, looking proper put together. But the stern image is immediately blunted by the shy smile that flickers over his face as he approaches the lectern to polite applause. "Thank you all for coming," he says, quiet voice amplified by the microphone. "I'm sure you all could have been doing much more interesting things with your evenings, so I appreciate the sacrifice," he adds, flashing all of his teeth in a quick grin.

_No, I fucking well could not_ , Eggsy thinks, sitting up and leaning forward, elbows propping themselves on his knees as he gives up the fight and allows himself to be drawn in.

After a bit of build-up, the lights dim so that everyone can see the projection screen better. There's a little lamp on at the lectern, probably so Harry can read his notes, but it has the added effect of making him seem to glow in the dusky room, of making his eyes shine brightly in the reflected incandescence.

Eggsy spends a lot more time watching Harry himself than the screen. Some of the butterflies have got colors like a race car, he likes those, but it takes an effort to tear himself away from Harry's infectious enthusiasm.

The lights come back up for the Q&A, which seems to pretty much consist of drawled, detailed inquiries from the academic types, and self-satisfied students trying to score points by saying something clever. Harry handles everything they throw at him, and Eggsy gets to see another side to him, a dry, sly humor that creeps in when the questions are particularly daft -- he might not know everything they're talking about, but he's got a pretty well-honed sense of when a person is being a dick. 

Eggsy finds himself grinning, chin on his fist and elbow on his knee, at the hint of steel under that gentle exterior.

The talk winds down suddenly, and Eggsy is startled to realize that it's already been 90 minutes. Some of the audience leaves, some form into little clumps, chatting away, and some converge on Harry where he's packing his notes and his laptop into a leather satchel.

It's at this point that Eggsy realizes he doesn't have an exit plan, and while he's contemplating that particular cock-up ( _fucking amateur hour, mate_ ), he keeps watching Harry, the graceful loops as he talks with his hands, the flash of teeth when he grins. He's clearly in his element here, and Eggsy feels something in his belly go strained and tight.

He ducks out of the lecture hall, more worried about speed than seeming casual, and heads for the loo he clocked when he was memorizing every inch of the hallway out there.

His reflection stares back from the mirror of the sink, as hollow and pathetic as Eggsy feels. What exactly did he expect? What was even the point of coming here? He's gone and got a crush on some random professor, the kind who gets _nature shows_ on the telly, where Eggsy just barely made it out of secondary school and can't take more than an odd job here or there 'cause his mum needs so much help with the baby. And now he's borderline stalking some bloke he don't know, which is a new low, even for him.

Eggsy splashes water on his face, wipes it off with some scratchy paper towels, and jams his fists in his pockets. Right, time to ditch the detour into the land of the seriously disturbed and head back to where he belongs. 

But he hasn't made it five steps toward the outer doors before "Eggsy?" floats down the hall behind him, in that gentle voice he'd _literally just decided_ not to obsess over anymore. _How did he even know --_ , he starts to wonder, and then belatedly remembers that having his name on his Twitter profile is just one more crap decision that's been waiting for a chance to bite him in the arse.

For just a second, he considers ignoring that voice and bolting, but his feet are in league with his thumbs, the treacherous bastards, and they turn him right around.  
Harry looks even better up close, because of course he does; Eggsy's fingers itch to find out whether those flyaway curls of hair are as soft as they look.

He tightens his fists in his pockets against the compulsion. "How'd you know it was me?" he asks, realizing a second too late that he just gave it away, that he probably could have -- should have -- claimed not to know who Harry was talking about. But it seems wrong to lie to that open expression, even if he's just setting himself up for a side of awkwardness to go with what's sure to be the politest rejection Eggsy's ever gotten.

"It was a guess," Harry says, echoing Eggsy's thoughts. "The entomology world is rather small, and I didn't recognize you." He breathes out a chuckle. "Though you did seem far more engaged than most of the audience."

"Their loss," Eggsy says, with a shrug bordering on the aggressive. It's gonna hurt when Harry sends him on his way, and Eggsy can't decide whether he wants to get it over with, or put it off as long as possible.

"Not to mention the fact that those," Harry waves down at his trainers, "are difficult to forget."

They're the ones with the wings, because that had somehow seemed like a quality joke when he was getting dressed, winged trainers for a butterfly lecture. 

"Right," Eggsy says, and feels his shoulders hunching up. Yeah, he'd tweeted a pic when he'd gotten them, but that had been months ago; if Harry had really gone that far down on his Twitter, who knew how much absolute bollocks he'd been exposed to. Shit, Harry's probably seen the little stick figure chav comics Eggsy doodles out when some posh git has been an absolute arse to him. He were lucky he weren't being escorted out the building right now.

"I wasn't sure whether you'd be coming this evening," Harry says, and Eggsy shrugs. 

"Had a free night," he says, and it's not _quite_ a lie, though he'd had to promise Jamal three nights of helping with his nan for one night of watching Daisy while his mum works. But Harry doesn't know him well enough to catch it.

"I'm glad," Harry says, and takes a step closer. Eggsy looks up at him then -- really looks, not the furtive glances he's been stealing. "Did you enjoy the lecture?"  
There's an openness to Harry, like he really wants to know. Like he really wants to answer to be yes. Like he really cares what someone like Eggsy -- what Eggsy himself -- thought about it.

_Fuck it_ , he thinks. If it's gonna hurt no matter what, he might as well go all in. "It was brilliant, yeah? I learned loads about butterflies," he says, and then his train of thought derails, because Harry's face lights up like the fucking sun, and it tugs hard at something in Eggsy's chest. "I liked the shiny metal-looking ones," he says lamely, scrambling to get back in the vicinity of sounding like someone who can carry on a conversation. "Flashy, they are."

"Many people do," Harry says, and he glances down, with a rueful set to his mouth.

"But I also liked the ones that looked like something else, to scare off the things that want to eat 'em," Eggsy adds, and Harry raises his eyes again. This time, Eggsy's the one who steps closer, and he watches Harry's face. "Butterflies got to protect themselves, right?"

"Indeed they do," Harry says softly, and the shy look in his dark eyes is starting to warm up. "Listen, would you like to join me for a coffee?" He quirks a smile, and adds, "Or dinner, perhaps? I'm afraid I found myself a bit too nervous to eat beforehand."

Eggsy feels his forehead scrunch up. "I thought you did this lecture thing all the time."

"Oh, I do. That part's second nature by now."

_So why was you so nervous_ , Eggsy wants to say, but then Harry offers his hand to shake, and Eggsy's own palms go sweaty. "I have to say, it's quite nice to finally meet you, Eggsy," Harry says, and Eggsy tries to surreptitiously wipe his palm on his jacket as he pulls his hand from his pocket.

"Yeah, me too," he says, and shakes Harry's hand. He can't tell if either of them lingers over the contact, because he's in a weird hyperaware place where everything seems desperately meaningful, but he'd swear that Harry squeezes his fingers before letting go.

"After all, one should acquaint oneself with one's suitors, I should think," Harry says lightly, and Eggsy feels a dull, unpleasant flush break over his skin.

"Oh, fuck off," he mutters reflexively, his cheeks burning, and then freezes in horror; that is _not_ the way to talk to a strange bloke you're trying to impress.

But Harry just grins at him, quick and toothy, and maybe, just maybe, he's not all that opposed to Eggsy's bullshit after all.

"Yeah, I could eat," Eggsy ventures, shrugging a little, in case Harry's changed his mind.

But what Harry says is, "Wonderful!", and his grin settles into a mellower smile, like it's planning to stick around for a while.

* * *

Their first kiss ends up happening in the London Zoo’s Butterfly Paradise. Harry's eyelashes flutter like wings when Eggsy cradles his cheek, but that's nothing compared to the mad fragile quivering dance being performed by Eggsy's heart.

**Author's Note:**

> hit me up on [Tumblr](http://kageygirl.tumblr.com/)


End file.
